MARSHAL Antonio de Spinola, the monocled colonial war hero who became Portugal's first president after the 1974 revolution, died after a respiratory illness in a Lisbon hospital yesterday, officials said. He was 86.
The government declared two days of national mourning and said Marshal Spinola would receive military honours at his funeral in Lisbon today.
Marshal Spinola, a hero of Portugal's long African colonial wars, became the first president of the new Portugal after the coup by young officers on April 25th, 1974, that ended nearly half a century of right-wing dictatorship.
Five months later he resigned in protest against the left-wing policies of the military junta and plans for the rapid dismemberment of Portugal's colonial empire.
The fiercely anti-communist Spinola fled the country in 1975 after being accused of involvement in an abortive right-wing coup. But he was allowed to return the following year as Portugal sought to heal its political wounds.
President Jorge Sampaio said yesterday: "He was a charismatic man, who will be associated with other great figures of the Portuguese armed forces who helped bring democracy to Portugal."
Spinola escaped to Brazil after the failed coup of March 1975 and was stripped of his rank of reserve general and expelled from the army. He returned to Portugal in August 1976 and was reinstated in the army two years later as the then military president, Antonio Ramalho Eanes, sought to overcome ideological rifts within the armed forces.
He promoted Spinola to the honorary rank of Marshal of the Armed Forces in December 1981.
Antonio Sebastiao Ribeiro de Spinola was born in Estremoz, south Portugal, on April 11th 1910, the son of an inspector-general of finance during the 40-year rule of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar.
Spinola was a catalyst in the events leading up to the 1974 revolution. His book, Portugal and the Future, published in February 1974, helped trigger the democratic revolution two months later. The book proposed a political rather than military solution to the war Portugal had waged against guerrillas in its African colonies.
Spinola did not go so far as to advocate independence for the territories. Nevertheless, his views were political dynamite to the government which dismissed Spinola from his post as deputy chief of the armed forces general staff.
The dismissal Provoked a major military and political crisis.
The young officers who staged the April 25th coup installed Spinola as head of a seven-man military junta of national salvation. He assumed power on May 15th, 1974.
